“The Voice of the Youth” - Locating a new public sphere between street protest and digital...

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FRITZI-MARIE TITZMANN

“The Voice of the Youth”1 Locating a new public sphere between street protest and digital discussion

“As a woman, I’m shocked. As an Indian, I’m ashamed. And as someone who’s recently moved to Delhi, I’m scared.”

(N.N., in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 20, 2012)

Introduction

On 16th December 2012 a 23-year-old paramedical student was gang-raped in a private bus in Delhi. The girl had been out with a male friend to watch a movie and was on her way home. Detailed descriptions of the horrifying bru-tality and her multiple gruesome injuries that eventually led to her death on 29th December in a hospital in Singapore could be found all over national and international media. Hence I don’t want to repeat these accounts. The follow-ing article focuses rather on the dynamics that led to the incident sparking off vehement and ongoing online and offline protest and activism. Immediately after the incident on 16th December, college students and thousands of other citizens joined in spontaneous demonstrations in Delhi and elsewhere, “mobi-lized by a sense of outrage, social media tools and word of mouth” (Sen 2013, 1). The 24-hours television coverage intensified the protests and attract-ed more participants until the protests reached a peak after the death of the victim. The immediate medial impact was enormous and manifested itself not only in unresting news reporting but posting and interactions on social net-working sites unleashed processes that reached unimagined dimensions. For weeks it seemed that India’s social media landscape was solely dominated by the case. It triggered long standing anger and frustration, motivated people to speak out and act upon their complaints. Activism formed to a great extent in an emerging digital public sphere: On online discussion forums, blogs and particularly via Twitter and Facebook. Interaction and exchange generated


networks and consequently brought many people together in real life, down to the streets, manifested in numerous demonstrations, solemn vigils, and vari-ous other protest activities. Nationally prominent hashtags2 included #Delhi-GangRape, #StopThisShame, #DelhiProtests, #Amanat, #Nirbhaya and #Da-mini3 (Barn 2013). From the college students who identified with the rape victim to feminist activists who commemorated the evils of Indian patriarchy and celebrities who mourned the decay of India’s cosmopolitan image, India’s Facebook, Twitter and blog spheres spread news and opinions, as well as calls for demonstrations, castration of rapists and a political revolution. The digital and street turmoil continued well into the new year and was fuelled by the disclosure of the victim’s real name4 by her father and by the following revela-tions of ever new rape cases. In contrast to the usual scenario, the protests involved no political parties and politicians were conspicuously absent. The virtual and real-life protests vehemently criticized politicians for their failings and their sole concentration on quick solutions to appease the outraged civil society. The state’s response to the protests was violent. Protesters received lathi-charges (beatings with sticks) by the police and eminent politicians missed the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon. They instead took to con-servative rhetoric, e.g. blaming women for being raped because of their pro-vocative dresses, therewith increasing the public consternation and enhancing the protest. Responses by self-proclaimed holy men on how women are at fault because of their disobedience to religious codes of conduct similarly stirred protest.5

Millions of young people in India and worldwide felt affected and personal-ly concerned with what it implies to be young (and female) in India. Personal identification with the fate of the raped student served for many as a starting point of further political reflection. Prachee Sinha (2013) wrote in the Eco-nomic and Political Weekly:

“In a state of shock and grief in the immediate aftermath of the inci-dent, I wrote an emotional piece in the social media casting an an-guished and tearful glance from the vantage point of a young woman who commutes to work across Delhi spending two hours in public transport each way.”

Despite of a globalizing economy and Indian cities aspiring world class status, particularly the capital is notorious for being an unsafe space for young wom-


en. Previous cases like the murder of Jessica Lal are evidence to this image.6 Sinha was by far not the only commentator pointing to the city’s ugly nick-name as “rape capital of India”. She continues to reflect on the inconsistency of Indian democracy which manifests itself on the one hand in outraged citizens protesting for justice and rights, and on the other hand in corruption and dubious vote bank politics where Sinha sees the “criminal elements” emerge from. Therewith she touches upon another crucial aspect of the discourse that followed the incident: The dimension of class and “why certain cases of rape make headlines while others are lost in the small corners of inside pages” (Sin-ha 2013). But the resulting media discourse centered around several other key concerns too: The government’s omissions and commissions, the state’s func-tion with regard to women’s safety, as well as the misogynist and patriarchic nature of Indian culture and society.

What struck many observers was that the mass protest was led by the edu-cated urban middle classes who are often deemed as apathetic, hedonistic and apolitical. As Sen (2013, 3) notes, “[h]istorically in India voting has been low-est in rich, urban constituencies as opposed to a much higher turnout during election in poorer, rural areas.”

Given the medial and political significance of the case and its related con-sequences one could explore a wide range of interesting aspects. I will in the following concentrate on two crucial questions.

The first question concerns the nature of the mobilization and its middle class participants. Barn (2013) has understandably posed the question whether the social media mobilization of protest generated by the Delhi rape case can be termed as “the Indian Spring” in the style of the so called “Arab Spring”, alternatively also named the first “Twitter revolution”, in Tunisia, Egypt and the Middle East. She sees an inherent link between the increasing digital mobi-lization and the political awakening of the urban, young and middle class elites whose emergence she ascribes to the Mumbai terror attacks. Although partly agreeing with her, Sen terms the protests neither anarchic and only media-driven, nor a “serious challenge to the government and the established political order” (Sen 2013, 2). He locates them as part of a continuum with the Anna Hazare movement against corruption that was similarly characterized by mid-dle class outrage, strong media presence, pyramid mobilization and the exces-sive use of social networking sites. But Sen (ibid, 2) assesses corruption contra-ry to rape or gender issues “more amenable to a long-term political mobiliza-


tion” and identifies a “lack of focal organization or figure in the protests over rape” to be successful.

The second and core concern of my research is the content of the discus-sions in the much debated social media networks. Since an analysis of India’s vast social media landscape would go beyond the scope of an article, I will focus on a selection of blog entries posted in reference to the Delhi gang rape case on the online platform Youth Ki Awaaz. While social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are preferred as mobilization tools, the online platform mainly serves to voice opinions and generate discussion. But given the increas-ing tendency towards cross-media strategies, Youth Ki Awaaz features many links to social networking sites by operating Facebook and Twitter groups and accounts and by compiling updates and opinions from these platforms. Hence, I will in a first step explore the nature of the protest movement and its mobili-zation patterns from a broader and more theoretical angle. In doing so, I locate the activism following the Delhi gang rape case in a broader analytical context of new social movements which are local and global at the same time (PART I). In a second step I will then look into the dominant themes of discussion revolving on Youth Ki Awaaz around the rape case and how they relate to the protests (PART II). I understand the expression of opinion and subsequent discussion as an important aspect of any form of social activism and protest. Building on that, my hypothesis is that debates in social media form an inte-gral part of the dynamic discourse within which the protest movement is situ-ated. Furthermore, as the empirical data in the second part of this article show, many of the young people who contributed their views on Youth Ki Awaaz engaged not only in digital discussion and online mobilization but participated in real-life street protests in the aftermath of the Delhi case. These experiences inform their engagement with social media and vice versa.

I. Protest Movements and New Media

Before I enter the debate on the impact of social media in protest movements, a clarification of the working terms is required. Kaplan and Heanlein (2010, 61) phrase the following definition:


“Social Media is a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content.”

They subsequently identify six types of social media. Blogs as the earliest form of social media feature chronological entries by one or several authors and allow interaction with others through comment functions. They further list collaborative projects like Wikipedia, content communities like YouTube, vir-tual game worlds and virtual social worlds (Kaplan and Haenlein 2007, 60). And last but not least social networking sites, particularly Facebook, are prob-ably the most prominent and widely used type of social media. Boyd and El-lison (2007) define social networking sites as

“web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of oth-er users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.”

Facebook and the microblogging service Twitter – that also enables network-ing amongst users through features like “following” someone, “sharing” posts and tagging topics – feature as the key drivers within the context of cyberactiv-ism and protest movements in the digital age. Social media enthusiasts like Shirky see their immense potential in supporting civil society and the public sphere and state that they will facilitate slow change over longer time (Shirky 2011). Castells (2013, 232) argues that the invention of social networking sites

“transforms culture by inducing the culture of sharing. SNS [social net-working sites] users transcend time and space, yet produce content, set up links and connect practices. There is now a constantly networked world in every dimension of human experience.”

Located in a globalized “network society” (Castells 1996), internetworked social movements are hallmarked by fluidity, flat hierarchies, multilocality and most importantly by their inherent network character (Langman 2005). Hence, the term network society as coined by Castells describes different phe-nomena related to the social, political, economic and cultural changes caused by the spread of networked, digital information and communications technol-


ogies. Closely related is the discussion of a virtual transformation of the public sphere. Langman (2005) applies the critical theory approach of the Frankfurt School that considers the role of literacy and media in fostering modernist bourgeois movements. He attempts to frame a critical theory of “internet-worked movements” by arguing that in Habermas’ conceptualization of the public sphere communication technology like print media have been identified as integral to modern social mobilization (Langman 2005, 43). He further argues that an increased overall mobility leads to virtual and consequently back to physical mobility (ibid, 46). Virtual mobility corresponds in his argu-ment to the defining trait of new social movements. He sees a decentralized communication network resulting in “deterritorialized ‘virtual public spheres’ – cyber salons, cafés, and meeting places in cyberspaces” (ibid, 55). The net-work character is further strengthened by the fact that most websites feature linkages to related groups and sites. Youth Ki Awaaz’ ramified social media linkage illustrates this aspect. Only a small number of sites are actually dedi-cated to social and political movements but the medium “has enabled unprec-edented numbers to have access to progressive agendas” (ibid, 56).

While enthusiasts like Shirky (2011) and Castells (2012) celebrate the new tools for social movements, critics like Morozov (2011) point to the growing threat of surveillance and censorship on national and global levels. India is one of the best examples of a Janus-faced virtual public sphere.7 While a national and international press celebrated the political awakening of India’s middle class through social media activism, arrests related to posts in social network-ing sites and blogs are frequent. The arrest of cartoonist Trivedi in 2012 for “mocking the constitution” triggered a debate over free speech and India’s press freedom. Further examples include the arrest of two young women after an unfavourable Facebook status update referring to Bal Thackeray’s death, and many people making critical comments on politicians online (Krishnan 2012). Even though serious attempts to limit or censor internet access is rather absent compared to countries like China and Pakistan, the Mumbai police inaugurated the country’s first ‘Social Media Lab’ in March 2013 to monitor the happenings on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The police highlighted the role of social media in the context of the protests against sexual violence as an eye opener to the urgency to keep online activities under surveillance (The Hindu 2013).

Critics also emphasize the lopsided pro-democratic values inherent in so-cial media usage that allow spreading hateful, intolerant and anti-democratic


content too (Joseph 2013, 173). Sceptics like Morozov (2013, 2011) and Gladwell (2010) doubt that decentralized, leaderless networks are capable of organizing revolutions and argue that cyberactivism does not translate into real movements. With little effort it simply pacifies the social consciousness, hence the term “slacktivism” for low-risk activism by clicking “like”, signing petitions and forwarding pictures and articles emerged (Joseph 2012, 150). Sassen notes a “common type of conflation of a technology’s capacities with a massive on the ground process which used the technology” (Sassen 2011, 577) and stresses the distinction between technology and users. She emphasizes the “toolness” of Facebook in the context of the Tahrir Square movement in Egypt.

Summing up the ongoing debate over the role and importance of social media for social and political activism remains without a clear-cut conclusion. At the very best, one could argue with Joseph that social media like the inter-net itself are neutral tools without inherent values, their usage and impact depend on the users. But even this assumption requires critical assessment, considering that “ICT can symbolize and reinforce positions of power, status and situatedness” (Holst 2011, 128). Holst challenges the notion of neutrality and argues from a postcolonial perspective that the impact of new media con-tent and debate rests essentially upon technological structures that are not always adjusted to local environments. Issues of language and script, for exam-ple, may provide technological disadvantages for many nations in the Global South. Multilingual India is one of the best examples.

However critically Castells’ work has been assessed, he carved out a set of common patterns of networked social movements that provides a useful set of analytical categories for the case of the Indian protest movement against gen-dered violence. The following paragraph summarizes his key points: (1) Cas-tells refers to the multimodal networking of emerging social movements. They connect online and offline networks, the society with the movements, etc. He describes them as network of already existing networks; hence they can work without a center or hierarchical leadership. (2) This “decentered structure maximizes chances of participation in the movement” and reduces the possi-bility of repression. (3) Incidents that trigger online outrage usually happen in physical environments, not in virtual space. Hence, the role of the Internet is mainly instrumental and cyberactivism translates only into an influential movement “by occupying the urban space”. (4) Castells identifies a space of autonomy which he refers to as the “third space” between communication networks and physical sites of action. (5) On account of mutually taking inspi-


ration from other movements around the world, he states that “movements are local and global at the same time”. (6) Incidents that turn into media events and consequentially into the causation of networked social movements are “spontaneous in their origin, usually triggered by a spark of indignation”. (7) One of the most striking characteristics is the accelerated pace with which messages, news and images are spread. According to Castells, movements become viral when they generate hope. (8) Multimodal networks create a feel-ing of “togetherness”, not in the classic sense of community because there is no shared set of values but a common purpose. (9) On account of integrating multiple demands and generally lacking a unifying ideology, Castells catego-rizes networked social movements rarely as “programmatic movements”. (Cas-tells 2012, 221–29).

Despite his true observations, he neglects the digital divide and thus ex-cludes theoretically those who do not have access to the networked world due to poverty, illiteracy and general socioeconomic inequalities. In the case of India, the population excluded from digital participation is far bigger than the number of cyberactivists. In 2012, India had an internet penetration of roughly 11 per cent and a Facebook penetration of about five per cent. Nevertheless, even though the numbers seems very little in relation, they still represent roughly 63 Mio subscribers (Internet World Stats 2013). Furthermore, the Internet is rapidly growing. The number of subscribers has increased tenfold within one decade and the number of mobile phone users has reached a densi-ty of almost 80 per cent of whom many access the internet through their mo-bile phones.8

Returning to the conceptualization of an emerging digital public sphere, this article is mainly concerned with the connection between digital discussion and real-life protests. Sassen’s theory of “The Global Street” seems helpful to understand the importance of the urban street as public space. Street protests are part of a modern global experience. From the uprisings in the Arab world to the anti-gentrification struggles in the West, she identifies an “epochal quality to the current wave of street protests” (Sassen 2011, 574). “The Street can, thus, be conceived as a space where new forms of the social and the politi-cal can be made” (ibid, 574). Sassen further stresses that certain local issues recur across the globe and can “engender a kind of globality that does not depend on the communicating” (ibid, 578). And yet, social media can play a crucial role in spreading the word, mobilize activists, or enable discussion in a networked public sphere. While incidents happen outside of the digital space


and consequentially trigger online outrage, debates and mobilization, they are in the course of a protest movement brought back to the streets. The Egyptian artist-activist Bahia Shehab talks about a “full circle” of mobilization in the case of Egypt’s revolution in 2011. She refers to medial mobilization inspired by real-life events that lead to street protests and their return into social media through documentation in form of recordings, images and reports that again incite mobilization. She further notes that this “cyberspace-street-dialogue” contains numerous cross-references and is marked by a high degree of inter-mediality (Shehab 2013).

India’s young social media activism: Who and why? As already noted, the mobilization around the Delhi gang rape case was varia-bly interpreted as a mass protest led by the educated, urban and middle classes, as an elite phenomenon or as the general political awakening of India’s citizen-ry. Bélair-Gagnon et al. (2013) conclude in their analysis of social media used by Indian and foreign correspondents that the democratizing aspects of social media take on a different dimension in India9, given the low internet penetra-tion and the high density of mobile phone subscriptions. In the Indian context the digital divide is fundamentally a sociocultural divide with the “affluent, educated, English-speaking youth of India’s major cities” (Bélair-Gagnon et al. 2013) still forming the biggest social media user segment. Nevertheless, the interviews analyzed by the research team indicate that following the Anna Hazare movement and the Delhi gang rape case, social media began to achieve a critical mass.

“To a greater extent than in previous protests, social media helped jour-nalists keep a finger on the pulse of middle class India and get their immediate feedback on important issues” (Bélair-Gagnon et al. 2013).

Barn (2013) ascribes the political awakening of the young urban middle class to the Mumbai terror attacks, while others see Anna Hazare as a catalyst of politicizing a middle class that traditionally played a margin-al role in Indian politics (Sen 2013). Whatever the reasons may be, online social and political activism is, as Castells has rightly argued, al-ways linked to real-life events that trigger outrage and/or hope.


A very small incident that occurred in December 2010 at an independent mu-sic festival in Pune illustrates the possibilities of social media within a social context of people who are not necessarily prone to political involvement. Dur-ing that time, public discussion in India centered on the so called 2G spectrum scam, also known as the Radia tapes controversy.10 The biggest corruption scandal of India’s telecom sector was initially hardly covered by the press and relevant information, rumors and new disclosures were disseminated mainly via Twitter which led to an increasing pressure on mainstream media to report about it. The NH7 Weekender, sponsored by a prominent beverage brand, celebrated its first edition as India’s independent music festival in the posh area of Koregaon Park in Pune. It hosted gigs by popular Indian rock, heavy metal, pop and hip hop artists as well as some international acts. Tickets were priced at several thousand rupees. The relatively high entry fees together with the musical content and the sponsored alcoholic beverages accounted for a middle to upper class audience of young urban Indians interested in non-Bollywood music and partying. The crowd cannot be described as one that is particularly concerned with politics, consisting rather of so called “Globo-Indians” (Mun-shi 2001, 80) who are less concerned with national politics and are significant-ly underrepresented as voters (Sen 2013, 3). Nevertheless, the gig of the fa-mous Indian electro rock band “Pentagram” was opened with a political state-ment by the lead singer against corruption in political and media circles and a call to the audience to get involved in circulating news about the 2G spectrum scam. Even more interestingly, he referred to the Twitter account of a music reporter friend who had compiled a plain summary of the scandal to be dis-tributed via microblogging. After the incident the reporter’s number of Twitter followers skyrocketed.

One may now understandably ask for the link to the Delhi gang rape case. The link lies in the nature of political mobilization of the young urban middle class. The combination of word of mouth, social media communication, and the inherent networking results in growing movements consisting of very individualistic participants. In the case of the 2G spectrum scam the aim was to uncover entanglements of media and “dirty” politics, i.e. to raise awareness. A couple of months later, in April 2011, Anna Hazare started his hunger strike against corruption and ignited what has become known as the Indian anti-corruption movement or the Lokpal bill movement (Banerjee 2011, Sitapati 2011). Some of the people, who attended the NH7 Weekender festival and re-tweeted the summary of the 2G spectrum scam, now demonstrated support


for Anna Hazare on their Facebook profiles and in their Twitter accounts. One and a half years later, they showed concern and solidarity for the rape victim and signed on to anti-rape Facebook groups called “Stop Rape Now” or “Nirbhaya” (named after the initial pseudonym for the rape victim of the Delhi case). Many of the people who expressed their outrage over corruption, injus-tice and violence against women in discussions related to the 2G spectrum scam, Anna Hazare and the Delhi gang rape case are college students, young professionals and people working in the media, software and call center indus-tries. Their affinity towards social networking sites goes hand in hand with an interest in lifestyle and pop culture issues. Many claim something one could term as common sense and a basic moral conscience, their education and global exposure implies a certain level of sensibility towards issues of injustice. Thus, cases like the three mentioned ones that generate a lot of publicity and media uproar, so called media events (Dayan and Katz 1992, Lenger and Nün-ning 2008), are likely to politicize those engaged in social networking to a certain extent.

The nature of the protest movement and its mobilization Leaving attempts to measure the impact of social media mobilization aside, the Delhi case resembles Castells’ (2012) common patterns of networked social movements in many ways.

According to Castells’ first point of multimodal networking, the Delhi gang rape case facilitated a coalition between long-standing activist movements, regular citizens, celebrities and global supporters. The emerging pyramid mo-bilization of protest crowds via online and offline channels further linked the cyberspace to real-life street protests and bridged the dichotomy of virtual and “real” spaces.

The multilocality and decentralized nature of the protests corresponds to Castells’ second point. Although Delhi was and continued to be the central site, the protests spread beyond the city’s boundaries and despite of lacking identi-fiable leadership mobilized many people beyond the core of student protesters. Sen also mentions the “lack of focal organization or figure in the protests over the rape” (Sen 2013, 2) as a crucial difference to the Anna Hazare movement. Similar to Shehab’s “full circle” or Castells’ point of events happening in physi-cal environments triggering online outrage, the real event of a brutal rape triggered immediate media reaction and lead to an ongoing (social) media


discourse that brought people nationwide out on the streets and their docu-mentation back into cyberspace. The “space of autonomy” (Castells 2012, 222) that emerges between communication networks and physical sites of action thus facilitated discourse across media formats and the online/offline divide.

It is striking that a local event served as a catalyst for nationwide and in-creasingly globalized social mobilization against gendered violence and rape. It did not only drive up international news reporting about gender issues in India but also propelled national awareness, hence proving Castells’ point of the simultaneousness of local and global movements right. The amounting protest against gendered violence in India facilitated integration into global movements such as the “One Billion Rising” on International Women’s Day. The event encouraged women to organize demonstrations and other creative forms of protesting rising violence against women. Many YouTube videos circulated encouraging women (and men) to participate. Media reports showed India trending at the forefront of the global campaign (GlobalVoices 2013).

Castells describes indignation or outrage as the main trigger for the spon-taneous formation of networked social movements. This is more than obvious for the case at hand. The most important factor was probably a widely-felt identification with the victim and a feeling of embarrassment and frustration over the state of gender relations in India. There are many reasons why this story caught fire in the public imagination more than any other rape in recent Indian history.

“There was, most of all, the unfathomably brutal violence involved. But many other things coalesced: the location of the crime, in upper-class South Delhi; the impunity of the attack; the fact that it was early even-ing; that she was accompanied by a male friend; that there were no complex caste or feudal hierarchies at play; that this was just random urban crime. That she was an average ‘wholesome’ girl making her way in the world. Women across the country felt, ‘but for the grace of God, that could have been me.’ She was Everywoman (Chaudhury 2013a).”

In another article, Chaudhury (2013b) asks why hundreds of other stories of rape not sufficed to prick the Indian conscience. “Why does gang rape horrify us more than mere rape? Why do rapes of Dalit or tribal or Northeastern women not shock the nation into saying ‘enough is enough’?” Her answer lies


in the deeply rooted socioeconomic hierarchies and a patriarchal cultural mindset.

The Delhi gang rape case went viral and thus confirms another one of Cas-tells’ set of common patterns. Numerous Facebook groups were created after the incident with up to several thousands of members. Individuals expressed their opinion, joined groups, passed on petitions, information, and audiovisual material, made and responded to calls for demonstrations, etc. Twitter linked and disseminated information. And deeper analysis as well as background discussion took place in forums, blogs, at the dinner table and in mainstream media. Intermediality in form of links between media formats further facilitat-ed the spread of content as well as strengthened the network character.

Castells’ last two points could be merged into one as well: A feeling of “to-getherness” without a shared set of values but united by a common purpose correlates to a lacking ideology behind the movement. While indignation and the will for change may create a feeling of “togetherness”, the protestors form despite their middle-classness a highly heterogeneous group. Adding to the aspect of identification with the victim, Chaudhury allocates a strong symbol-ism to the figure of Nirbhaya (one of the pseudonyms given to the victim be-fore her identity was revealed):

“In a sense, Nirbhaya embodied a new India no one has a full measure of yet. India’s cities and small towns are full of young men and women like her: restless and on the move; hungry for an education, for jobs, for English, for social mobility, for belonging. They’re an Internet genera-tion; they know there’s a wider world out there. They’re reinventing themselves with energy, dissolving—or at least challenging—centuries-old boundaries of caste and station and wealth. They love their families with a grave sense of duty, but they long to leave the old ways behind. If it’s to be a toss of coin, they’d rather look good than eat, rather have a TV set than a bed. They’ve sloughed off old skins, but not quite ac-quired the new. Just one chromosome binds them all: aspiration. They are the neo-middle class (Chaudhury 2013a).”

After having outlined the main agents of the networked social movement fol-lowing the Delhi gang rape case and having identified some key components of the nature of the protests and its mobilization, I focus in the next section on


the expressions of self-reflexivity of young Indians’ own position, experience and opinion in form of blog posts on the youth portal Youth Ki Awaaz.

II. Debating on Social Media – An analysis of Youth Ki Awaaz posts

Youth Ki Awaaz is promoted as “India’s largest online, collaborative, UN awarded platform for young people to express themselves on issues of im-portance” (www.youthkiawaaz.com). The platform allows users to blog on topics and entertains an extensive cross-media network including a Facebook site featuring more than 45.000 “likes” and a Twitter account with over 3000 followers (December 2013). An anonymous post from 27th December 2012 presented a collection of comments from the Youth Ki Awaaz Facebook page, stating “Every youth in the nation has an opinion about every aspect related to the Delhi rape incident. Be it the government’s reaction or the steps taken for the victim’s recovery, we have our voices and we MUST speak” (N.N., in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 27, 2012). In the following I present the analysis of 21 posts11 made in reference to the Delhi gang rape case between 16th December 2012 and 25th April 2013 on Youth Ki Awaaz and relate the findings to the above discussed arguments on networked social movements and the nature of the protests.

Given the context of an online forum, the analyzed posts were contributed by young people who are literate and have Internet access. Few give away de-tailed information about their personal background but one can assume that the site attracts mainly urban middle-class users whom I see as part of the heterogeneous group taking interest in social media activism and online dis-cussion. Many Youth Ki Awaaz contributors had been participating in their respective cities in the protests and later on reported or reflected on their ex-perience in an online public sphere. The anonymous post quoted at the begin-ning of this article sums up the overall feeling of shock, shame and fear that is the “spark of indignation” according to the patterns identified by Castells’ (2012) triggering outrage. The same author confirms what Chaudhury (2013a) has described as the strong symbolism of the case referring to its potential for identifying with the victim: “Maybe it’s because it could happen to any one of us” (N.N., in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 20, 2012). Apart from an obvious personal identification and an overall expression of


shock and anger, six dominant themes emerged, namely gender, mobility, space, class, India’s image and policy/protests.12 While all six categories stand for certain thematic clusters, the last one combines the critique of political reaction and police intervention with the evaluation of the nature of the pro-tests.

The category gender refers to arguments made in reference to gender-based discrimination, the women’s movement, the role and responsibilities of men and a critique of the status quo of gender relations in contemporary India. Each of the 21 analyzed posts contained references to gender, hence it repre-sents the strongest of all the six generated themes. Key issues are the lacking respect and protection for women and deeply rooted patriarchy. Neelima Ravindran argues that the answer lies within the families and the society that plants the idea of male dominance in the minds of people from their child-hood onwards. In an interesting comment, a male reader agrees and takes up the invitation for introspective but cannot find “a trace of sexism” within him. While mostly proving the essayist right, he suggests that women should em-power themselves by training physical strength to defend themselves (Ravin-dran, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 19, 2012).

The question whether men are responsible for empowering women by al-lowing them to move freely in public space is treated controversially. Many agree but some disagree and see the responsibility with women, and others express simply fear and a general suspicion of all men: “Every nameless man out there on the streets seems like a violation of my perception of safety” (N.N., in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 20, 2012). The motif of blaming women for inviting rape is dealt with in several texts. Two very similar posts contain compilations of outrageous comments by eminent politicians and religious leaders on rape and women’s role in it. Although Sumedha Bharpilana’s post is more satirical, both posts provide a deeper un-derstanding of prevailing stereotypes and deconstruct the remarks. Referring to comments that criticize women’s dressing, wrong behavior and mindset, Nidhi Sinha (in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on February 20, 2013) states that misogyny prevails and the common thread that binds all these be-liefs is the blame laid upon women for inviting sexual violence and harass-ment. Bharpilana (in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on January 14, 2013) satirically refers to the recommendation of modest clothing and make up and to the assumption that women in “Bharat”13 are treated like goddesses


as long as they behave properly. This statement also bears reference to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s remark that “rapes happen in India, not Bharat”.

Many claim that the question of women’s safety is only the starting point for an encompassing revolution in India (Balachandran, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on January 1, 2013). There are several suggestions how to tackle the issue. First, there are calls for changes in law towards more gender-justice (N.N., in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 27, 2012). Secondly there is the demand for education. Compulsory sex education in-volving child psychologists had been among the recommendations of the Jus-tice Verma Commission report.14 Charumati Haran (in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on January 30, 2013) welcomes this in her post as a progres-sive step towards changing attitudes from a young age onwards. Another post refers to the call for educating people to prevent rape and remarks that the protesters at the India Gate in Delhi were mostly educated students. Neverthe-less, deeply entrenched patriarchal structures are not so easily dismissed and he links the responsibility of one’s own behavior to the question of good citi-zenship:

“Travesty lies in the fact that these so called educated, knowledgeable civilized, advanced and well cultured people are themselves involved in making women an object of desire. […]Truly, we need to introspect, all of us, on how we are contributing to the objectification of women. What kind of citizens we are trying to become (Rawat, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on April 24, 2013).”

Further noteworthy is the reassessment of feminism in online discourses. While cyberfeminism or online women’s activism is definitely on the rise (Gaj-jala 2004; Gajjala and Oh 2012), the Youth Ki Awaaz bloggers did not overtly embrace feminism as an alternative to the patriarchal structures they are criti-cizing.

“I am disgusted with every person (irrespective of who they are and what their gender is) who tag me a feminist whenever I try to voice my opinions on the inadequacy of our government to ensure protection to us, our clan! (Mallick, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on April 25, 2013).”


A rather strong dissociation from feminism as an ideological movement stands in this remark against an identification with other or all women as “our clan”. Uberoi (2001) has analyzed romantic short stories that were published in the Indian English-language women’s magazine Woman’s Era between 1994 and 1996. Her observations from 20 years ago interestingly reveal a strong parallel to the attitude towards feminism prevalent in the Youth Ki Awaaz posts. Wom-an’s Era’s romantic stories, despite of promoting love marriage or independent female role models, were permeated by a conservative, pseudo-nationalistic rejection of the women’s movement, “deeming ‘women’s lib’, so-called, a dan-gerous and foreign-inspired fad that will surely corrupt Indian womanhood and cut at the heart of Indian family life” (Uberoi, 2001, 169). Apparently, ‘good’ Indianness and feminism are perceived as insuperable antagonism. It is questionable whether Panchali Mallick, who posted on Youth Ki Awaaz, has a deeper understanding of the term ‘feminism’ but the label itself seems deter-rent or even insulting. In this way the young bloggers of Youth Ki Awaaz con-sciously distance themselves from earlier social movements. But it is not clear whether they do it out of ignorance or with the intention to mark the begin-ning of a new era.

Many (female) contributors described their limited mobility in public and the social rules that curtail their freedom. “After this episode, a steep decline was seen in the number of women going out freely on the streets, not only in Delhi, but also in other states. Families built up stringent rules for their daugh-ters, wives and teenage girls” (Shetty, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on March 13, 2013). While some bemoan their betrayed hopes of increased mobility when moving from small towns to the capital15, Siddharta Roy (in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 31, 2012) expresses his intention to “fight against every mentality that says woman should be locked up in houses to be safe.”

In reference to mobility, Bharpilana writes in her satirical “Here Are Ten Commandments for ‘Bharatiya’ Women”:

“Thou shall not move out of your place of dwelling that is situated in Bharat, after 8 pm in the evening. […] Thou shall stay away from mo-bile phones as much as you can. You see, when these contraptions come in contact with the delicate skin of a female, they tend to emanate sig-nals that force the invincible male to believe that the girl is asking for it


and it is his duty to satisfy her carnal desires (Bharpilana, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on January 14, 2013).”

In a more sober style, Nidhi Sinha (in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on January 20, 2013) quotes Kailash Vijayavargiya, Cabinet Minister in Madhya Pradesh, citing Sita’s story from the Ramayana as a warning that women should stay in the space ascribes to them (by men). Clearly, the discussion about rape emanating from the Delhi case has ignited criticism going beyond the sheer condemnation of violence and extends to gendered conceptions of mobility and freedom. Panchali Mallick writes in her post titled “Breaking Free To Reclaim My Freedom: I, The Woman of My Country!”:

“All I need is the liberty the freedom of movement and life that I de-serve. I feel sorry for myself because I have been forced to demand what is birth right. [sic!] (Mallick, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on April 25, 2013).”

Closely related to questions of mobility are issues of space and specific locali-ties. In the discourse Delhi emerged as the “rape capital”, a reference that can be found repeatedly within the analyzed posts too (Roy, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 31, 2012; Mallick, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on April 25, 2013). But the discussion of space extends to an urban/rural divide as well as to particular complaints about public transport or certain streets. Hence, physical space is on many levels inherently linked to freedom or limitations of mobility and, as the next category shows, to social class as well.

Delhi was trending on Twitter as a dangerous and backward locality. A post by Shivani Singh compiles several tweets:

@RooneyKhosla- “I feel violated. In my own city. Each time I read this kind of news. Everyday when we’re harassed on the roads. Are u hearin our voice? #delhi”

@KadambariM- “Problem really, is that #Delhi, like parts of UP & Har-yana, has a culture of disrespecting women, a chauvinism scarier bcoz it is so casual (Singh, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on Decem-ber 19, 2012).”


Another text challenges the emphasis on Delhi being highlighted all the time as unsafe for women:

“What about smaller cities where women are made to feel the violation even much after the incident itself? Most would even perhaps whisk it under the carpet and pass it off in silence, both as an individual and as a community. Instead of screaming around songs of Delhi being unsafe, do look into where it’s coming from, what it is returning to and how many cases do you really come to know of from outside Delhi (Singh, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 21, 2012).”

Although the writer puts Delhi as a specific locality into perspective by con-fessing a feeling of relative safety produced by cameras, police checks and other surveillance mechanisms, she conforms to the perception of the small town as a conservative and repressive space. Ojaswini Srivastava confirms the underlying notion of Delhi as an aspirational place:

“I am not a Delhi girl. I am from a small town, but I live here, and there are hundreds others like me. I, we, we all want to be bolder, freer, and more confident than we are at our hometowns, because we are in Delhi (Srivastava, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 27, 2012).”

The motif of Delhi extends even further and the city also features as a beloved space that has been taken over by crime and brutality and needs to be re-claimed (Kumar, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on April 21, 2013). The discussion of space is but not limited to Delhi as a locality. Nidhi Sinha (in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on January 20, 2013) also takes on Bhagwat’s already mentioned remark that “rapes happen in India, not Bharat”. She interprets it as a condemnation of metropolitan Indian culture and points out the stark Hindu nationalist concept that links a (religiously defined) imag-inary space and morality.

The class dimension is one of the most controversial issues. As already mentioned, it features very strongly in the discourse about the Delhi rape case, in the mainstream media as well as in social networking sites. Sinha (2013) puts forward that women, historically as well as today, are seen as the ‘Other’ and in times of war or conflict are often treated as loot. Women, according to


this argument, are not only constructed as opposite to men but are also the “women of the multiple ‘Others’ created by manifold boundaries of caste, community, religion and nation. It is a long standing tradition of our culture (as well as of many others) that we punish and humiliate our ‘Others’ by pun-ishing and humiliating their women. […] I suspect, in a peculiarly psycho-demonic way, this tradition was practiced in that white bus on December 16” (Sinha 2013). Hence, referring to the Delhi case, the girl was not only the ‘Oth-er’ in terms of being female, she was also the ‘Other’ in terms of class and soci-ocultural background: “she appeared to be educated, had the guts to fight back and was out with a man late in the evening” (ibid.).

Sinha suggests that educated people of higher classes should know better. The same assumption pervades the Youth Ki Awaaz posts. Shivangi Singh (in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 19, 2012) collects “Twitter Reactions for Rapists, Delhi and The Governance” in her post and quotes a tweet by Preeti Shenoy that conforms to this discourse: “The worst thing about rapes is even educated men ask ‘what was she wearing’ and ‘why was she out so late’ Deplorable. #delhi #rape”. Other contributions contain references to the class-based mindset of small town inhabitants as more dangerous. The fact that the rape victim hailed from a respectable middle class background was debated vigorously in the media. Many accounted it for the overwhelming media attention and rightly claimed that rapes of women from marginalized social groups are hardly even reported. By asking “Why do rapes of Dalit or tribal or Northeastern women not shock the nation into saying ‘enough is enough’?”, Chaudhury (2013b) reminds us in her Tehelka article of deeply-rooted social hierarchies.

The category that I have titled ‘India’s Image’ is somewhat related to notions of space and territory but extends further into hurt feelings of national and/or cultural pride, embarrassment over the country’s representation and demands for social change in Indian society. India’s image appeared as a strong motif. Firstly, the feeling of national shame prevails throughout the 21 analyzed posts. The case is interpreted as the violation of a nation’s spirit. Rape statistics and India’s prominent position on place three worldwide in numbers of rape are combined with a feeling of inferiority (Roy, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 31, 2012; Singh, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 19, 2012). Amongst the compilation of comments on social media is one particular Facebook posts that indicates embarrassment over the fact that the victim had to be flown to a Singapore hospital and couldn’t re-


ceive appropriate treatment in India (N.N., in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 27, 2012). Many equated the case with the overall strug-gle for social change in India. In linking so called Indian culture, political shortcomings and the prevailing problem of gendered violence and rape, Upasana Sharma writes:

“We find faults in the system but do not do what we can on a personal level. We need to build a nation with an awake conscious. Not someone who nods and follows along. Following the modus operandi, I have a name to suggest for her. Till we don’t bring about change and develop a conscience, let’s call every rape victim, India (Sharma, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on April 21, 2013).”

In a similar spirit, Tanaya Singh writes on account of the victim’s demise:

“This is one of the saddest days in the history of India. […] As a citizen of India, the same country she was born in, the same country that helped her dream and the same country that killed her, let us pledge to make this day the beginning of the change that the nation has been fighting for. (Singh, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on De-cember 29, 2012).”

Attempts to explain this ‘shameful’ side of India often lead to arguments link-ing ‘the evil’ to culturally sanctioned patriarchy and the upbringing of male children (Ravindran, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 19, 2012). Lacking respect for women is often cited as the core problem of Indian society. A sense of nationalism, in the form of professed love for the country, produces very emotional and outraged reactions. Bloggers write: “I feel frustrated on being a woman in my country, whom I love unfathomably” (Mallick, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on April 25, 2013) or “I feel like running away from this country” (Dahiya/Chaturvedi/Haroon/Shashank, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on April 21, 2013). They link their emotions to an overall critique of Indian culture and mentality. A young male blogger claims that India was a country “which was once counted as a topmost nation in the virtue of respect towards the female gender” (Kumar, in a com-ment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on April 21, 2013) but with the recent rape cases this “honor” is not considered suitable anymore. Although his statement


is historically rather questionable, others contrast India’s image as a spiritual and religious nation with the social reality. In these interpretations, the holy place of the mother at the heart of the traditional Indian social system and the worshipping of female goddesses (Poggendrof-Kakar 2003) conflict strongly with the existing gender inequality. “Why do you call her laxmi, when you have to rape her?”, asks Ojaswini Srivastava in her post (in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 27, 2012). Some go far beyond criticizing gender relations and argue that questions of women’s safety are only the start-ing point for the required encompassing revolution.

“The Delhi incident has triggered a wave of protests relating to safety of women and the solutions thereof. But these solutions cannot be made or implemented unless we question how India’s public offices & institu-tions function, how our executive, legislature and judiciary work cur-rently and do they really serve the masses and how young Indians ex-pect/want them to work. In short, we need to fundamentally redefine how India works (Balachandran, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on January 1, 2013).”

The wave of protest mentioned in the above quote was the ultimate political outcome of the case and is hence seen as a form of political awakening. Alt-hough the protests are interpreted by all contributors on Youth Ki Awaaz as a step in the right direction to change India’s social and political landscape, the last analytical category reveals conflicting notions of the nature of the protests and the required political action. Predominant themes throughout the texts were the outrage at police brutality, the government’s inaction, and inappropri-ate comments by politicians and religious spokespeople. Further discussed were necessary changes in law and adequate methods of punishing the perpe-trators. According to these narratives, the struggle needs to continue because the government does not take appropriate measures. It takes too long to pass new laws and implementation is urgently needed (Kumar, in a comment post-ed to Youth Ki Awaaz on April 21, 2013; Garg, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on March 1, 2013).

“The system – whose police and politicians make archaic and wretched quotes on why the girls ‘deserve’ to be raped or why it was their fault. These primitive brains clearly hold the reins to a country and we, the


young, are appalled by our leaders and protectors (Roy, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 31, 2012).”

Apart from the already mentioned satirical dealings with the outrageous comments and suggestions by Indian politicians and religious leaders, even their expressions of sadness and regret are deemed as disappointing, empty statements (Sinha, Youth Ki Awaaz, 20.01.2013; Shetty, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on March 13, 2013). The social media discourse on these outrageous comments and the practice of ‘victim blaming’ continued well into 2013. A YouTube video released by the Delhi-based comedy collective All India Bakchod titled “It’s my fault” went viral in September and October 2013 and caused uproar throughout national and global media (Brindaalakshmi 2013). Gursimran Khamba, a co-founder of All India Bakchod, told Al Jazeera:

“The notion behind this video was pretty simple. We wanted to attack patriarchy as it exists in India. It sort of comes out every time there is a sexual assault case or a rape case. The first thing that happens, instead of focusing on the crime and looking at the perpetrator, the default for some reason is that the burden is always put on the woman (McGlensey 2013).”

In mid-November 2013 the video had close to 3 million views, 30,000 likes and more than 12,000 comments on YouTube. Critique of politicians and religious leaders is complemented by complaints about the exorbitant police violence against protesters in Delhi (N.N., in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 22, 2012; N.N., in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on Decem-ber 27, 2012). Certain instances were highlighted to illustrate the system’s failings: e.g. when police forces publicly hit female protesters, when the police tried to bribe the father of a missing child, and when the National Commission for Women chief Mamata Sharma refused to see the parents of the sexually abused child after its retrieval because it was a holiday (Kumar, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on April 21, 2013). Other posts warn that “[b]laming government, police, etc. will also not help either of us” (Chaturvedi in Dahi-ya/Chaturvedi/Haroon/Shashank, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on April 21, 2013) and call for introspection instead of pointing fingers at “every-one but ourselves” (Ravindran, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 19, 2012). The critique of political reactions to the Delhi rape case,


the debate around the nature of the protests and the expressed urge for chang-es in Indian society and mentality are all combined and interlinked in the statements.

Apart from these overall themes, the very concrete question of how rapists should be punished pervades many posts. Common to all is the call for severe punishment and Neelima Ravindran recounts how “the social media has de-manded every possible punishment from castration to death by stoning”. The death penalty appears even as the lightest version (Singh, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 21, 2012; Singh, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 19, 2012; Ravindran, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 19, 2012).

Some bloggers take up the task of analyzing the nature of the protests be-yond criticizing police brutality and the state’s incapability. In many ways the posts correspond with Castells’ patterns. Definitely, the events following the Delhi gang rape case and the related discourse were triggered by a “spark of indignation” (Castells 2012). The strong identification with the victim and a feeling of national shame that pervade the online discourse on Youth Ki Awaaz testify this assumption. By calling for ongoing protests, compulsory sex educa-tion, and social change bloggers connect not only online and offline worlds but also general social issues with a particular movement. An interesting post compares the reaction and consequences following the Delhi gang rape case to the outbreak of the Arab Spring after the self-immolation of a Tunisian fruit seller. He traces the inspiration for the Indian anti-corruption movement to the same incident in Tunisia (Balachandran, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on January 1, 2013). He thus links his own experience and the Indian discourse to a global media sphere as well as to social movements around the world. One post features a virtual discussion on the pro and contras of central leadership for the protest organization. The statements were collected from members’ Facebook posts and assembled according to overarching questions, e.g. on the survivor being flown to Singapore for further treatment, on the need for central leadership in the rape protest movement, on the attack of Delhi police on protestors, on the protest against Rapes (N.N., in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 27, 2012). Castells’ identifies decentral and non-hierarchical leadership as symptomatic and effective for networked social movements (2012). Many collected opinions correspond with his as-sumption by writing: “This is not any leader’s movement, this is a cause of


everyone” (ibid.). Yeshu Aggarwal but disagrees and holds India’s diversity and lacking unison responsible:

“It reminds me of India’s 1857 War of Independence. According to the History I learned in school, India lost that war because of division across India. Only if we had a leader for a movement. And no I don’t in-tend it to be a political leader. Someone like Kiran Bedi for e.g. would have been suitable (ibid.).”

Interestingly, Aggarwal suggests Kiran Bedi16 as a political leader who played a prominent role in the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare. Alt-hough Castells’ argument of decentered structures applies to the organization of protests, the Indian context demonstrates the need for a symbolic lead fig-ure such as the recent Anna Hazare movement illustrates. Similarly debatable is the question of a unifying ideology. Castells argues that networked social movements can rarely be categorized as programmatic. In her post, a young woman agrees with his argument by stating, “[t]he protest is a peaceful ‘people’s protest’, with no political agenda and hence there is no central leadership” (Sundharam, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 28, 2012). In spite of her statement, she lists the demands of the protesters below. Evi-dently she analyzes the political agenda behind the protest without categoriz-ing it as such. Apparently, having a political agenda is equated with following a certain party’s ideology. One can assume that the fear of parties jumping on the bandwagon and usurping the protests for their own purposes is present here. This critique is clearly expressed and extended to the media in a later post referring to the case of the rape of a five-year-old girl:

“I also request the AAP or any other political party to stop manipulating the genuine anger of the youth for vested interests. Let us not give the sly media and the administration any opportunities to discredit the pro-tests […] (Kumar, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on April 21, 2013).”


Conclusion

As the above analyzed postings on Youth Ki Awaaz have shown, India’s youth does embrace online tools to express their opinions and enable political and social discussion. Through hyperlinks the analyzed platform is connected to a larger network of social media and social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. Given the fact that English as a language prevails and the partici-pating bloggers do have access to the Internet, it is probably justified to speak of a broadly middle class user profile. Nevertheless, it would be misleading to reduce the role of social networking sites and microblogging to a middle class lifestyle phenomenon. As the immense media mobilization related to the Delhi gang rape case demonstrates, there are various other influential agents in-volved in transforming a media event into a social movement. India has a long lasting tradition of a very active women’s movement (see Chaudhuri in this volume) that used the high publicity case both as a point for their existing agenda as well as a cause to criticize the focus on this singular case while ne-glecting thousands of previous and simultaneous rape cases involving women of lower status. A heterogeneous conglomerate of feminist and social activists equally utilizes the Internet’s potential for networking and mobilization.17 While the analyzed blog posts echo criticisms of highlighting one single event while thousand others go unnoticed, a clear demarcation from feminism as an ideology is present as well. Despite these differences between young college students on Youth Ki Awaaz and ingrained gender activists, the tools which were employed were the same. Neither can one deny the presence of thousands of young Indians demonstrating across the country against gendered violence and rape. As it is evident from their narratives, many Youth Ki Awaaz con-tributors had been participating in their respective cities in the protests and later on reported on reflected on their experience in an online public sphere.

With this background it is difficult to assess Sen’s assumption that “social media warfare” and street protest do not translate into “actual” politics which he measures mainly in the voter representation during elections (Sen 2013). On the other hand, the kind of middle class cyberactivism and online dis-course described above could have easily remained what Morozov (2013, 2011) and Gladwell (2010) have criticized as “slacktivism”, the easy clicking for a peaceful social consciousness. But the so called “political awakening” of the Indian middle class did against all prognoses not peter out. Mobilization con-tinued with several key events that highlighted new aspects of India’s prevalent


patriarchal culture and were seen as parts of a continuum: the rape of a Swiss tourists cycling through Madhya Pradesh in January 2013, and the already mentioned rape of a five-year-old girl in Delhi in April 2013. The latter case became infamous when news spread that the police tried to bribe the raped girl’s father to keep quiet. While the case of the Swiss woman directed discus-sion towards safety for tourists and female travelers in general, the second case revealed once more the unbounded absurdity of blaming raped women for inviting rape through their behavior or clothing. The above discussed YouTube video “It’s My Fault” by the comedy collective All India Bakchod uses extreme sarcasm to counter this line of argumentation and to reveal the hypocrisy behind it. It is not surprising that particularly the case of the raped child sparked off a new wave of social media campaigning and petitioning. Again, medial mobilization inspired by real-life events leads to actual protests whose documentation finds its way back into the media and completes, what Egyp-tian artist-activist Bahia Shehab has called the “full circle” or the “cyberspace-street-dialogue” (Shehab 2013).

Hence, the question remains whether one could speak of an emerging digi-tal public sphere revolving around the event? In spite of the accounts of protest movements and online mobilization, an over-enthusiastic positive assertion of the Internet is not quite appropriate. Yes, new media have the ability to link people to each other and to events but their usage do not imply activism. Cas-tells’ patterns, as I have argued with respect to the Youth Ki Awaaz posts and other recent examples, apply to the case but are not sufficient to explain the dynamics at work. An increasingly networked world allows participation in a (virtual) public sphere that continues to be dominated by patriarchal struc-tures. Participation is equally structured along existing offline hierarchies such as class and gender and consequently excludes already marginalized groups. These observations are opposed to earlier influential predictions that future technologies may flatten hierarchies (McLuhan 1962). Castells (2012) did not bear in mind that despite of all its benefits, an increasingly important digital public sphere on the other hand deepens the digital divide and favors an elitist discussion. Very important and unfortunately beyond the scope of this article is the fact that a digital public sphere cannot exist entirely separate from other media discourses and is necessarily intermedially linked to news reporting, discussions and debates in the print media, on television channels, and in various other offline spheres. Media discourses inform each other and as much as online and offline experiences are connected, the Delhi gang rape case oc-


curred in a time of intensified medialization in which the Youth Ki Awaaz contributors live and make sense of social realities.

In terms of access, social media do not transcend unequal opportunities but those who had access to online discourses and social networking sites were enabled to express their opinion, anger, hopes and frustration in an unprece-dented way and engage in discussion with young people nationwide and even globally. The exemplary analysis of 21 posts on Youth Ki Awaaz shows that the emerging discourses around gender, mobility, space, politics, and the media are far from trivial and contain serious critique of the existing system.


Bibliography

Youth Ki Awaaz Posts

BALACHANDRAN, SURENDRAN, January 1, 2013, “Has India Begun 2013 On A ‘Revolu-tionary’ Note?,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/ 2013/01/india-2013/.

BHARPILANA, SUMEDHA, January 14, 2013, “Here Are Ten Commandments for ‘Bharati-ya’ Women.” Youth Ki Awaaz, January 14, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/ 2013/01/here-are-10-commandments-for-bharatiya-women/.

DAHIYA, VISHAKHA et al., April 21, 2013, “‘Our Present Mentality Is The Worst Culture In The World’: Delhi Rape Quick Views,” Youth Ki Awaaz, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/ 2013/04/our-present-mentality-is-the-worst-culture-in-the-world-delhi-rape-quick-views/.

GARG, UDITA, March 1, 2013, “Internalizing The Revolution And Battling Personal Hypocrisies,” Youth Ki Awaaz, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2013/03/inter-nalizing-the-revolution-and-battling-personal-hypocrisies/.

HARAN, CHARUMATI, January 30, 2013, “Why Sex Education Is A Very Progressive Point Of Justice Verma’s Report,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2013/01/why-sex-education-is-a-very-progressive-point-of-justice-vermas-report/.

KUMAR, AKHIL, April 21, 2013, “The Rape Of A 5 Year Old And The Heartless Police: It’s Time To Be Very Very Angry!,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2013/04/the-rape-of-a-5-year-old-and-the-heartless-police-its-time-to-be-very-very-angry/ (Access: 04.11.2013).

MALLICK, PANCHALI, April 25, 2013, “Breaking Free To Reclaim My Freedom: I, The Woman Of My Country!,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2013/04/breaking-free-to-reclaim-my-freedom-i-the-woman-of-my-country/.

N.N., December 20, 2012, “I’ve Never Been More Terrified In My Life: Shock, Anger, And Terror,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/ 2012/12/ive-never-been-more-terrified-in-my-life-shock-anger-and-terror/.

N.N., December 27, 2012, “India’s Fight Against Rape: 20 Youth Tell Us Their Views,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2012/12/indias-fight-against-rape-20-youth-tell-us-their-views/.

N.N., December 22, 2012, “Its Unbelievable How The Indian Police Behaved,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2012/12/its-unbelievable-how-the-indian-police-behaved/.

RAVINDRAN, NEELIMA, December 19, 2012, “While Discussing Rapes In India, Did You Look Within “You?,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2012/12/while-discussing-rapes-in-india-did-you-look-within-you/.


RAWAT, TANUJ, April 24, 2013, “The Hypocrisy Of The Protesters: Abhi Ye Sab Nahi Karange To Kab?,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2013/04/the-hypocrisy-of-the-protesters-abhi-ye-sab-nahi-karange-to-kab/.

ROY, SIDDHARTHA, December 31, 2012, “A Nobody’s Perception: Why ‘Never Again To Rape’ Means So Much?,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2012/12/a-nobodys-perception-why-never-again-to-rape-means-so-much/.

SHARMA, UPASANA, April 24, 2013, “Angry Yet Helpless: Till We Don’t Develop A Con-science Let’s Call Every Rape Victim, India!,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 15, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2013/04/angry-yet-helpless-till-we-dont-develop-a-conscience-lets-call-every-rape-victim-india/.

SHETTY, NEHA, March 13, 2013, “Why A ‘Happy Women’s Day’ When For The Rest 364 Days We Are Terribly Unsafe?,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2013/03/why-a-happy-womens-day-when-for-the-rest-364-days-we-are-terribly-unsafe/.

SINGH, REETI, December 21, 2012, “You Do Not Have To Travel All The Way To Delhi To Get Raped,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2012/12/you-do-not-have-to-travel-all-the-way-to-delhi-to-get-raped/.

SINGH, SHIVANGI, December 19, 2012, “#StopThisShame, #Delhi: Twitter Reactions For Rapists, Delhi And The Governance,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2012/12/stopthisshame-delhi-twitter-reactions-for-rapists-delhi-and-the-governance/.

SINGH, TANAYA, December 29, 2012, “Delhi Gang Rape Victim No More, The ‘Cause’ Still Survives,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 15, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/ 2012/12/delhi-gangrape-victim-no-more-the-cause-still-survives/.

SINHA, NIDHI, January 20, 2013, “They Said It: ‘Eminent’ Indians And Their Com-ments,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/ 2013/01/they-said-it-eminent-indians-and-their-comments/.

SRIVASTAVA, OJASWINI, December 27, 2012, “I Am From A Small Town, I Live In Delhi, I Am Scared And I Have Questions,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2012/12/i-am-from-a-small-town-i-live-in-delhi-i-am-scared-and-i-have-questions/.

SUNDHARAM, JOANNA SHRUTI, December 28, 2012, “What EXACTLY Are We Fighting For?,” Youth Ki Awaaz, November 4, 2013, http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/ 2012/12/what-exactly-are-we-fighting-for/.

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............................................ 1 The title refers to the popular Indian online platform Youth Ki Awaaz. In a mix of Hindi and

English the name literally means “voice of the youth” or “mouthpiece of the youth” as the website itself translates it.

2 A hashtag is a word or a phrase prefixed with the symbol #. It is used to indicate themes or categories in the microblogging service Twitter.

3 Amanat (“treasure”), Nirbhaya (“fearless one”) and Damini (“lightning”) were Hindi pseudonyms for the rape victim initially given by various media houses prior to the disclosure of her real name. The pseudonym Damini refers to a film by Rajkumar Santoshi (1993) with the same title. The film’s theme centres around a woman’s fight against society for justice.

4 Section 228A of the Indian Penal Code prohibits the disclosure of the identity of a rape victim. 5 The protest resulted finally in the government’s promise to adjust the laws to protect women and

prosecute rapists as well as to improve the entire judicial process. The case itself has been moved to a fast-track court.

6 The model and barmaid Jessica Lal was shot dead in a Delhi night club in 1999. The initial acquittal of her murderer, the son of a wealthy Congress politician, was followed by a public out-cry. The incident brought to light the long-lasting frustration of the middle class with corruption. There were numerous protest campaigns, including ones involving SMS and email. Rallies and marches took place, as well as candlelit vigils. The protest and supporting media campaigns en-forced an appeal and consequently Lal’s murderer was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Indian movie “No One Killed Jessica” (2011), starring the popular actresses Rani Mukherjee and Vidya Balan, is based on the media coverage of the case. Schneider (2013, 99–103) analyses the movie within the context of the multi-dimensional interrelation of real-life (youth) protests and the emerging genre of urban protest films in Hindi cinema.

7 For discussion on the virtual transformation of the public sphere see: Gaurav Desai, The Virtual Transformation of the Public Sphere (London: Routledge, 2012); Lauren Langman, “From Virtual Public Spheres to Global Justice: A Critical Theory of Internetworked Social Movements,” Socio-logical Theory 23, no.1 (2005): 42–74.

8 The mobile sector has grown from around 10 million subscribers in 2002 to pass the 900 million


........................................................................................................................................................................... mark in early 2012 (Internet World Stats 2014).

9 The authors’ basic assumption of social media as a democratizing force is debatable. The article remains unclear about the question whether the assumption is a flattening of hierarchies in in-formation production and distribution or a democratization of the society through social media. Although social media do increase participation, Joseph (2012, 174) questions that greater partic-ipation leads to democracy and pluralism.

10 The 2G spectrum scam was revealed in 2010. It involved politicians and government officials in India illegally undercharging mobile telephony companies for frequency allocation licenses, which they would then use to create 2G subscriptions for cell phones. Media sources such as OPEN and Outlook reported that the two senior journalists Barkha Dutt (group editor of NDTV) and Vir Sanghvi (editorial director of Hindustan Times) knew that corporate lobbyist Nira Radia was influencing the decisions of appointment of telecom minister. The two magazines made pub-lic the telephone conversations between Nira Radia, Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi. Critics allege that Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi knew about the nexus between the government and the media industry but still they supported this corrupt activity and suppressed news reporting. See: Swamy (2011).

11 A keyword search on Youth Ki Awaaz for “Delhi rape” resulted in 21 relevant entries that were posted between the day of the incident (16th December 2012) until the close of my data collection (25th April 2013). Posts on other rape cases were not included in the analysis.

12 I have employed the method of grounded theory (Strauss and Glaser 1967) and generated rele-vant categories through coding the texts.

13 Bharat is the Hindi name for India and carries in the above mentioned context a hindunationalist connotation.

14 The committee under former chief justive J.S. Verma was appointed in the aftermath of the Delhi case in order to review anti-rape law and suggest reforms. The comprehensive report deals with sexual crimes at all levels and with the measures needed for prevention as well as punishment of all offences with sexual overtones. It eventually led to the passing of the Criminal Law (Amend-ment) Act, 2013. The full report is available under http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/ Justice%20verma%20committee/js%20verma%20committe%20report.pdf, accessed April 28, 2014).

15 “We can never be free. We hardly wear anything different than what we can wear at our small conservative place. We can hardly enjoy roaming around after dark, we can hardly move about freely everywhere” (Srivastava, in a comment posted to Youth Ki Awaaz on December 27, 2012).

16 Kiran Bedi joined the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1972 and was the first woman officer. She retired in 2007 from IPS. She served tough assignments and influenced important decisions and reforms, particularly in the areas of narcotics control and prison management. Bedi is a notable social activist. She founded two NGOs and joined the anti-corruption movement in 2010. She did not join the Aam Aadmi Party that resulted from the movement but declared her support for Nar-endra Modi (BJP) during the election 2014.

17 See Gajjala (2004) and Gajjala and Oh (2012) on South Asian and global cyberfeminism.

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